WARSAW (Reuters) -- Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Tuesday he had held encouraging coalition talks with the small Peasants Party.

Kaczynski's conservative Law and Justice party needs the support of the Peasants and independents to gain a majority in parliament after ditching the leftist Self-Defense party from a coalition last month.

"We are in talks with the Peasants, these talks bode well," Kaczynski told public radio after meeting Peasants' leader Waldemar Pawlak.

Law and Justice has said early elections may be the best resolution to the crisis if talks to forge a new coalition fail.

However, with opinion polls showing the conservatives trailing the opposition by some 10 percentage points, Kaczynski said on Tuesday he hoped to avoid a snap poll and would not back an opposition motion to dissolve parliament.

"There is not the slightest reason to hold elections now unless it turns out that a majority government cannot function anymore," he said.

Parliament will vote on Thursday on a motion to shorten its term and call early elections. Law and Justice can block the motion, which requires a two-thirds majority to pass.

To avoid elections, Kaczynski signaled he could even return to a coalition with Self-Defense and its firebrand leader Andrzej Lepper. Last month, Lepper and Kaczynski fell out over the 2007 budget. Asked if he could bury the hatchet with Lepper, Kaczynski said: "I will do everything which is within the bounds of decency."

Lepper said last week he was ready to return to government.

A former member of the anti-communist Solidarity labor union, Kaczynski took power a year ago promising to rid Poland of a network of former communists, businessmen and secret service agents he says gained control after the 1989 revolution.